'Nate had a good life': Hundreds gather in Lafayette for Nathaniel Tallman's funeral

By Mitchell Byars, Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
03/26/2014 12:41:32 PM MDT

Mourners leave the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Lafayette after the funeral service for Nathaniel Tallman on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. (Cliff Grassmick / Daily Camera)

Nathaniel Tallman (Courtesy photo)

LAFAYETTE — As mourners sat in Immaculate Conception Church on Wednesday for the funeral of Nathaniel Tallman, family friend Aaron Allen asked those in the crowd to close their eyes and remember him.

"It only takes a moment to bring a smile back to my face when I think about that young man," said Allen, who delivered the eulogy.

Friends and family of Tallman gathered Wednesday morning to remember the 25-year-old Lafayette man, who was found shot to death in Wyoming earlier this month after being missing since late January.

"Sometimes bad things happen to good people," Pastor Bob Amundsen told the mourners. "When it does, somehow we feel like we need to make sense of it all as we struggle with the pain and the confusion.

"But we can't."

Hundreds packed the church at 715 Cabrini Drive for the two-hour service before making their way to Coal Creek Cemetery for Tallman's inurnment.

During the service, friends remembered Tallman for his love of baseball and Red Rocks, and for his caring and kind personality.

Tallman graduated from Monarch High School in 2006 and attended Otero and Aims community colleges. He worked with his father in the family's greeting card and gift distribution business.

"All of you are here because, in some way, Nate's life touched yours," Amundsen said. "Nate had a good life. It wasn't very long, but he encountered a lot of people and celebrated a lot of good things."

Tallman's family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons.

The body of Tallman, the victim of an apparent drug-related murder, was discovered March 13 along the side of a highway north of Lusk, Wyo. He had been missing for nearly two months.

One suspect, Russell Britton, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder and two others — Moises Mendez, 26, and Daniel Ortiz, 38 — could be charged as early as Friday in connection with Tallman's death.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story